AMBITIONS for Church Street are the latest stage in the plans for regenerating Blackburn town centre.

The original centrepiece was the £34million Cathedral Quarter with its two high-quality office blocks (one built and one on the way) and a hotel.

This brought the town which brought three new restaurants, the Premier Inn’s Thyme eaterie, Italian A Mano, and Turtle Bay complete with Caribbean bar.

It also created a Starbucks coffee shop and Cafe Northcote nestled into the side of the Cathedral as part of its new court of clergy accommodation and cloister garden.

A new £5million bus station replaced the one displaced from The Boulevard and The Mall threw in a new extension and entrance opposite the transport hub.

Blackburn with Darwen Council then turned their attention to the Northgate side of the town centre.

Work has now started on the £3.8million Blakey Moor Townscape Heritage Project to create a leisure quarter of cafes, bars and restaurants with the renovation of The Baroque pub recently announced as the first recipient of a National Lottery grant under the scheme.

PICTURES: How Church Street has changed over the years

The council’s plans (which in 2013 envisaged five new restaurants for the town centre) saw bonus developments including Nando's on the Peel Retail Park behind the railway station, Frankie's Burgers reviving the dilapidated Pitchers opposite the bus station, and EastzEast taking over Blakey’s in King George’s Hall - not to mention new bars popping up in King William Street near the Town Hall.

Church Street always risked being the hole in the doughnut - a fear which the failure of Gioia Italiano in May intensified.

But today's revelation that Haute Dolci is definitely on the way in the New Year will ease those concerns and hopefully ensure this crucial pedestrianised area has a key role to play in the new Blackburn which is increasingly rapidly becoming a reality.